dance music

[peter edge]

There used to be a time in womens artistic when artistic interpretation of the music was a large part of the routine, but now it seems like its just used as a cue to start their tumble runs. Is it time to ditch the music and perform without?After all they manage to do the split leaps and jumps on the beam with no music!http://www.british-gymnastics.org/memberforum/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Sarah]

I think that there is definitely still a place for music on floor. It makes the whole routine so much more enjoyable to watch and shows the difference between a good routine and a superb one. Most gymnasts at the olympics have amazing tumbles and pretty clean leaps and jumps but what makes a routine really stand out is when they use the music to complement the routine. That's what you remember at the end. Just take Catalina Ponor from Romania. She has similar tumbles and leap series to everyone else but there's so much more to her routines than that. That's why she's so amazing to watch.

[KayJ]

I love Fei Cheng's floor, it's amazing, hope she does really well in the floor final tonight! It is true though that there are so many tumbles that there isn't much room left for dance any more which is a shame, I've seen some old videos of gymnasts (who my mum remembers!) and their dance is much nicer 'cos they didn't have as much tumbling taking up all the floor time, and I've noticed because of this that lots of times the audience clap with the music and really ejoy it, it doesn't happen that much now I don't think.

[Tasha]

You can't ditch music!! I think every appartus of every dicipline in gymnastics should be done to music. If there isn't its just move after move with no sparkle but when music is added it is a perfomance! Luv Tasha xxxxx

[Lucy]

I used to hate doing my floor routine, I was never that good at the dancey bits, but I can appreciate other peoples routines. I tend to prefer the mens though as the dancey bits seem to almost distract from the technical ability of the gymnast.

[Anita]

An awful lot of the gymnasts don't use the music at all which is a great shame. As Sarah says - those who actually do "use" their music (even if only in short bursts) are the routines you enjoy and remember most.

Artistic gymnastics seems to be losing the "artistry" whereas acro in placing a much higher emphasis on it :cool: .

My only complaint about the music at the olympics is that you can't always hear it - either it's too quiet or Auntie Beeb has muffled the sound. Shame.:(

[KayJ]

Yeah I know! I tried turning the music up to hear it 'cos it was too quiet, and then the person commentating spoke and nearly blew the telly speakers 'cos I didn't realise I had it turned up so much to try and hear the music!!! My favourite piece is floor and I'd like to see a bit more dance come back into big comps like this like we have in our small novice and intermediate comps. I know the higher you get the more tumbles and difficult moves you have to do but maybe they could extend high level gymnastics music by another 15 seconds or something so you can fit the dance in that you lose at this level? My floor routine is nearly 90 seconds and has loads of dance in it and I'd hate to do my routine missing out loads of that dance.

[Anita]

I'd noticed that artistic routines were 90 seconds max - sports acro is 2½ minutes max so there's plenty of time to dance :) .

[Sarah]

90 seconds does seem a bit short for a routine at this level. I can undertand it at lower levels because lots of younger gymnats aren't great at dance and they'd just be galloping around the floor! But at FIG level lots of them use four tumbles and once you add all the leaps and spins there's not much time for anything else. " 2 1/2 minutes would be useful. But keep the music, it all adds to the perfomance!

[KayJ]

Yeah 2 1/2 minutes gives them another minute extra to what they have now and they could do more dance instead of cramming as many tumbles and special requirements into 90 seconds like they have to do now. There have been a couple in the Olympics who have had hardly any dance at all, it's all moves, and even the commentator mentioned something like "if there was any choreography in there I missed it"!! But the dance that was in was pretty good, just not enough of it 'cos they don't have enough time to fit it in!